Snapshots
by Willow1593
Summary: Five short, unrelated snapshots of a... something. House/Wilson, not quite slash. Read into it what you will.
1. Suggestion

**Suggestion**

James Wilson was a doctor. A registered, practicing doctor. That being true, he had passed Psychology 101. He knew all about the power of suggestion.

And yet, he was still falling prey to it.

It had, as usual, been Cameron's fault, really. It was her squeals of "You two are so cute together!" which had started it.

Then Chase, the dumb one, with his innocent questioning. "Why do you walk so close together? If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a couple!"

Wilson had laughed nervously. Chase, seemingly satisfied with that, had wandered off.

Foreman had said nothing. But he was so similar to his boss, and Wilson knew _him_ better than he knew himself, that when the black man gave him one of his puzzled frowns as he looked at them sitting together watching General Hospital and eating potato chips, Wilson could tell, just tell, that he was weighing up all possible answers and drawing the most logical conclusions, even if they were wrong...

Then House Himself, with all the gay jokes, those piercing blue eyes staring straight at him. Wilson wondered.

The nurses, giggling as they walked down corridors... Other doctors, giving him knowing looks as he walked into the building with House after his wife left him...

The problem was, that if an idea were repeated enough times, then even the people who would previously have sworn it to be false started to doubt, and wonder, and Wilson found himself, despite his inhibitions, considering it, what it would be like...

Wilson knew House better than Wilson knew Wilson, but Wilson still felt sometimes that his best friend was completely incomprehensible. House on the other hand, knew Wilson so well that he could predict his every move and counter it with a brilliance that took Wilson's breath away. God, he was going mad. When had he started talking like a crappy romance novel?

Cuddy had taken to giving House cases which involved him walking past the oncology wing more than usual. Or perhaps that was just Wilson's imagination. Every time his best friend looked at him, every time they had a crappy conversation about god-only-knows what, he wondered... When House took cases which he normally wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, and Wilson was the one asking, he wondered whether there had been some unterior motive, whether maybe, just maybe...

The door opened; no knock. A head stretched round. It was unshaven and gaunt. "Lunch? You're buying."

Wilson gave a weak smile. The blue eyes in the door narrowed.

Fuck.


	2. Knot

**Knot**

House, ever awkward in social settings, pulled uncomfortably at the tie round his neck. Wilson noted that it was one of his own, probably one which had been left around the last time he had stayed over at the flat. Unthinkingly, he reached over and retied the knot in a neat windsor, ignoring the scowl he received in return.

"Well, now that I'm looking presentable, _darling_, I'd like to go chat up some women with big boobies... then we can go home and have hot passionate sex..." House ignored the sharp intake of breath from the hospital benefactor with whom they and Cuddy had been making polite conversation. The man's red suit was truly horrendous.

"Not as horrendous as the bloody tie you made me wear." Wilson smiled at the soft hiss in his ear: how did House do that? He watched his friend stalk off towards Cameron.

Wilson turned with an apologetic smile. The man in the red suit stretched his mouth horizontally in a frosty grimace, then turned away on a pretence of getting more canapės. Cuddy looked indulgently from the older of her best two doctors to his best friend. Her eyes were bright: Wilson suspected she had been hitting the red wine rather hard this particular benefit. His opinion was confirmed when she uttered her next sentence.

"When are you going to admit that you're in love with each other?"

Wilson spluttered into his drink. "Pardon? What on earth gave you that idea?"

"Well," she leaned back slightly into the table, and raised one finger. He knew he was in for a lecture now, he searched desperately for an escape route, but everyone was having civilised conversations except House, who was trying to chat up a woman in a sequinned top. The misanthrope caught his best friend's eye, and grinned. Wilson grinned back, and returned his attention to his boss, desperately hoping that she had finished by now. She hadn't, however, and had noticed his look. She sprang up, arms waving wildly.

"See! That's what I mean! You instinctively search for him in a crowded room. You smile when he speaks, even if he's insulting you. You bend over backwards to save him when he screws up, and you let him take the one in a million chances because you want to think he's always right, even when you know he can't possibly be. You're the only person who's ever been able to get him to wear a tie for god's sake!

He listens to you when he won't listen to anyone else. You're the only person to whom he has ever said sorry, and meant it. He tried to get off the Vicodin for you (yes, he knew it was you), and saves that private little smile of his just for you. He's jealous as hell, and was distraught that time you couldn't go to the monster trucks with him.

He loves you, and you love him too. So, when are you going to admit it?"

Seemingly exhausted from her spiel, Cuddy relaxed back into the table once more. Wilson was reeling. Could it possibly be true? Was he... could he... House?

He supposed it would explain everything. The way his heart skipped a beat when House entered the room. The way that he would give up almost anything to be near him. The way that he always felt safe when his best friend was near, the way that he somehow took abuse from House which no one else would have dared to give to the Wonder Boy Oncologist, the one with the best grades in the country in his year, the saintly one. It made sense, he supposed. To everyone. That they were in love. They were, in a way. And yet...

And yet... no. It made sense, and everything pointed to them being... well... but no. He loved House, more than he could quite conceive, and would do anything for him. But there was nothing sexual about it. It was just... need. He needed House like a fish needed water. They were entangled like... like the knot around House's neck, which he had once again pulled too tight, in agitation at his failure to chat up Sequinned Top Girl. He caught Wilson's eye and strutted over. Cuddy was smirking, but Wilson didn't care. He reached out, and re-tied the tie for the thirf time that night.


	3. Knowledge

**Knowledge**

A figure, wrapped in white bandages looking small, too small, on the white bed. Stubbled beard, hollow cheeks, oh so bright blue eyes. That damned motorcycle! If only he's never lent House the money for it, if only he'd stopped him from having one more beer, if only he'd been there...

A scratchy voice from the bed. "Stop beating yourself up about it. My bike, my alcohol, my life." _How _did he do that? Know what Wilson was thinking before he said anything?

"Being a genius, and knowing you inside out, does have some uses."

Wilson sighed, went to the bedside, and took one of the pale hands into his own.

"You're an idiot."

"I know."

"I love you anyway."

"I know that too."


	4. Limb

**Limb**

The door opened with a slam so hard that Cuddy was surprised that the glass didn't smash into a pile of shards on the floor. The head of Oncology strode in, his brown hair flying behind him.

"You're firing House? Have you _completely _lost your mind?"

Cuddy sighed. "He amputated a patient's arm without permission! Of all people he should have known better, after what happened to his leg, what we did-"

"Bullshit! We didn't amputate his leg, we took out the dead muscle which could have killed him. We saved his life, and whatever he might say, he understands that. And the amputation he did yesterday saved that man's life in the same way! One more malpractice suit, what's that? Why this time? You've saved him before, do it again! Remember Vogler? You can't fire him, you need him, he's the best doctor that this hospital's got!" Wilson's eyes were blazing as he ranted, pacing the room and gesticulating wildly.

Cuddy raised a placating hand. "But the man says he can't work without his arm! He's a builder. He's sueing for two million dollars."

"Fine! But why can't you just go through the lawsuit? He'll settle for less, it saved his life! You put aside 50 thousand a year for lawsuits, just increase that a little... Ok, times it by 40 odd, but please! I only wish there were some way to do an arm transplant so that I could bloody well give that bastard my arm and make it go away... what?" He noticed Cuddy staring at him agape.

"You would do that?"

"What?"

"Chop off your arm to keep House's job?"

"Yeah. He needs his job, it defines him, without it he would have been a goner long ago. House lives to solve cases."

"But you're a doctor, you need two hands to do your job as much as that builder does!"

"I'd manage. I've got savings, and I could... I don't know. It's all theoretical anyway, limb transplants aren't possible... just don't fire him! He needs the hospital, and the hospital needs him."

"Why, though? Why would you consider that, even only in theory?"

"Because... He's House."

Cuddy shuffled the papers on her desk awkwardly. "Fine. He can stay. But from now on, no more amputations. And I'm doubling his clinic hours for a year."

"Thank you." Wilson strode back out towards the door, but just as he reached for the handle, he paused. "You never actually intended to fire him, did you?"

"No. But the fact that you'd be willing to chop off your own arm to save him..." She looked away. "Well, it's all in theory, isn't it? Nothing, really."

"Yeah. Theory."


	5. Penitence

**Penitence**

Cameron was worried. House was sitting silently. House was never silent when he could be gloating about having solved the latest case several hours before his fellows had even run the tests. As she sat and watched him through the glass screen between the offices, she wondered. He wasn't even playing with the ball, or the yo-yo. He was just sitting, and staring into space, completely motionless.

As if noticing that he was being watched, House started suddenly, turned his head, stared into her eyes for a second, then grabbed his cane and strode out of the office. She wondered whether she should, or could follow. She decided against it, on the grounds that she had never seen House this quietly angry, and wanted to keep her job, and possibly her life.

Wilson wrote so hard on the prescription form he was filling out that he tore the paper. _ How could that idiot..._

There was a knock at the door.

Speak... or in this case think... of the devil. Wilson could see his best friend's sillhouette through the glass, but House never knocked... maybe he was truly penitent...hah, what was he thinking? House, feeling guilty?

Wilson slammed his pen down on the table. "Go away."

House stood before the desk, head down. He said nothing.

"I said, go away," Wilson repeated angrily. "I have nothing to say to you."

House remained silent.

"Fine. Have it your way."

Wilson went back to his scrip. He pushed down so hard on he pen that a huge splodge of ink spread across the page.

House finally spoke.

"Usually when people are mad at me, I don't really care, but when it's you mad, it makes me wonder what I've done wrong this time."

Wilson snorted. "It could be something to do with faking cancer in order to get high on painkillers."

"Sorry."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. It seemed a good idea at the time, but I guess... I just got carried away. So, yeah. Sorry."

He turned, and slowly walked towards the door, leaning even more heavily that usual on his cane. When he reached the handle, he paused, as though expecting to be called back. But Wilson said nothing, so House left the room and went, with heavy tread, back down the corridor to Cameron. Wilson turned back to his scrip.

He wrote so lightly that he hardly made a mark on the paper.


End file.
